TRACKERS IN THE ALPS

780 comments:

re miners vs. AGQ: Thanks SB and all. I am much more short-term than you, SB, and am just looking at the next 1-2m months of C-wave completion. Their margins may hold, but if people see oil zooming the buyers for the juniors may back off at least some. I may keep some as a toy but expect to switch. Today's slight out-performance is probably that they got crushed yesterday. Interesting.

Wow, what a mountain. You can see the trails in the green meadows below the rock and ice.

Gary, will the meadows be melted out in June?

I've done a lot of hiking and some climbing in the North Cascades in Washington State. The alpine meadows there don't melt out till early to mid-July most years, late July some years. The climate there is different than that of the Alps. Alps is continental, North Cascades is maritime with the Hawaiian high pressure system dominating the summer weather starting.

June might even be more lovely than the picture would suggest, probably snow patches here and there as the meadows are melting out, flowers coming up thru the snow (glacier and avalanche lilies do that in Washington State)

though they are leveraged to the cost of the metal, they are of more risk.

after q1, the jrs are dumped like a hot potato because news releases and financing has been done for the year in Q4. no catalysts to spark them.

remember a lot mining corps are offer little to no incentives for big institutions to hold long term, it's the big paying dividend players that still get the biggest cash inflow when people think equities are "in".

i prefer the metal less complicated. when it becomes seasonal for gold and ala a, c waves add leverage if you want to trade.

My point was that all miners exploded on the day FRG was taken over. For the record, I don't think it'll matter much which vehicle we're in, and in fact I owned/traded DGP (2x gold, similar to AGQ) primarily for the first half of 2010 and it also worked as expected. My focus more on miners this round is that as the bull matures, miners can still make great gains while metals go sideways (at elevated levels).

For example, if silver hits $45 and stays around there for awhile, miners will still be growing earnings.

Either way, long pm's is the place to be adn the rest is just splitting hairs. :)

Gary: I have been to Zermatt. It is staggeringly beautiful--you're going to have a wonderful time. I was there right after high school, so a "few" years ago. I highly recommend staying at the Salzgaberhaus...if you like sleeping in a big room on the floor on straw mats with ten other people. Hey I was 17!

Japan isn't going away over night. But it will eventually and it shouldn't be long before the dollar gets back to moving down into the three year cycle low and gold gets busy finishing it's C-wave advance.

For the next week though traders will probably be better off just turning off their computers and doing something else.

All the markets clearly oversold. We get any indication that those reactors are going to make it through without significant issues, then ALL risk trades will rally for a few days like there is no tomorrow.

BUT, watching that plunge today in realtime when that annoucnement came through gave me an idea that if there was a real meltdown on one of those reactors, we had the potential for a big 5% (equities) down day, maybe much more, towards 10%, IMO. I couldn't imagine the drop in Silver if we did 5% the other day.

What other primary activities do you have planned for the Switzerland trip besides the Matterhorn climb? I doubt you plan on visiting anywhere outside Switzerland on the 10-day trip, correct? I may diverge and go to Paris for a few days and would like to arrange that properly, BUT if the 10-days is jam packed with nice activities I'd have no problem staying in Chocolate Money land.

I'd like to take the glacier express to St. Moritz one day and even though I've already seen Chamonix we might rent a car and drive over one afternoon. I will probably be two days on the Matterhorn at some point so those will be free.

Gary,it looks like we are going to have a very long daily cycle here in gold, unless either we go lower than 1380's or higher by a lot 1430's. Could this be a problem to get the final C wave in the allotted amount of time (i.e. top in the first week of may?) thanks

PC: You may have misunderstood me. I meant we can handle Dow down 100, not down an additional 100, so we need to rally from here which we may or may not do.

I will not buy SIL back regardless, but will add to AGQ. SIL (and GDX and GDXJ, for that matter) has been a dog. That may or may not change but I see no reason to stick with SIL. AGQ is plenty volatile for me!

The end of April early May is just an estimate. This all depends on the dollar. when and if it decides to cave (and I think it will) things can get out of control rapidly. Besides gold is only 4 days past a "normal" cycle duration. It's not like we've lost a month.

It sure doesn't look to me like the dollar is putting in a bottom. I find it incredible that with a potential nuclear disaster the dollar is lower than where it was last Wednesday. Not much of a bottom! It should be skyrocketing instead. News is irrelevant. What is relevant is how an item reacts to the news and it is hard to believe a more bullish scenario for the dollar could develop. Given that it seem destined to tank, IMO.

PC: Nope. Signal is generated at 4:00 ET. Anything can happen between now and then. I have been talking about likelihoods. If at the close things line up just right it is triggered. If not, not, though I can usually tell by 3:30 if it is possible or not.

Trading wiggles are tough thing to do.Personally I dont do wiggles simply because I hate paying commissions, and to top it off, I cant win all the time.I also dont trade stocks, as a matter of fact I only own 1 stock and its an explorer (my lottery).

Patience my friends. Most of you have 10,000+ days ahead in your lives. Within less than 30 or so things shall be swell. Big picture is key. Divergence of attention from noise makers also key. Stay busy my friends (and thirsty ;).

Jay- I traded the daily cycle low last go around and I have to say I might be more comfortable doing that. I missed out on about 1500 bucks when all was said and done but I wasn't sitting through this either. This is a good lesson for me. My plan this time was to ride it through and since my entry was good enough this time sitting hasn't been an issue but if we continue to get new nuke news everyday about leakage and Tokyo is now empty the panic yesterday will seem mild.

Here's the thing in hindsight one could say it's better to trade daily cycles but only because this particular cycle happened to include an earthquake. Absent the earthquake the daily cycle low might have amounted to two or three very mild down days that one wouldn't be able to time the bottom of anyway.

In real time it's almost almost a huge mistake to try and time the daily cycles in a final C-wave rally.

OMG, I'm so glad I have a dissertation to write as a distraction. Every time I check in, I just miss one of the dips. I never thought I'd say writing this sucker would be a sane thing to do, but relatively to watching the market . . .

yes, I lost big in 2008, I never did regain all of mine, but last year, happened to run into someone who was an options trader and she said just put it in gold and I will do fine. By fall of 2010, I was hooked on gold. So had been looking for someone to guide me through the cycles (didn't know that prior) ups and downs. I found SMT early Feb and added silver and on the ride now with the bull. I will say it is volatile and I am used to getting in and out more, so staying in is taking some years off my life with this ride.

There won't be a daily cycle lower and then higher again. Intermediate cycles don't work that way.

If a daily cycle breaks below a prior cycle low it almost always means an intermediate decline has begun. Once gold puts in the daily cycle bottom it shouldn't get broken and the next leg up in the C-wave will be on.

That's why I say it's kind of meaningless to pick a level and place a stop. It's often just a guaranteed loss because the only level that has any meaning in volatile markets like the PM are daily cycle pivots.

They are the only levels that will act as a true stop and if broken have true meaning.

PC. No levels are involved. Just sit tight. I promise to post (but we are not getting that rally, so no go anyway) It's based on the dovetailing of several items so there is no way to figure it out, but I can often tell that if we rally some of the items will wind up where they need to. The Dow level (except up or down) is irrelevant.

No chance for a signal today as the late day fade killed it. That of course does not mean we won't rally from here, just that the signal makes it a great bet. I bought a tiny bit of DFJ at 38.0---perhaps because I am nuts, but if the world doesn't end over there this thing is CHEAP

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The chief of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says all the water is gone from one of the spent fuel pools at Japan's most troubled nuclear plant. This means there's nothing to stop the fuel rods from getting hotter and ultimately melting down.

The outer shell of the rods could also ignite with enough force to propel the radioactive fuel inside over a wide area.

Gregory Jaczko did not say Wednesday how the information was obtained, but the NRC and U.S. Department of Energy both have experts on site at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex of six reactors.

He says officials believe radiation levels are extremely high, and that could affect workers' ability to stop temperatures from escalating.

Geez, that is awful, jayhawk. Man, I feel so sorry for all people in Japan right now. We're over here worrying about our PM trades watching numbers on a screen, and they are dealing with a life threatening situation, one that could affect millions. Let's hope and pray they can figure something out that will prevent a meltdown and/or explosion.

John thats a misconception, and the media keeps repeating this false pretense. Gold usually does not react positively in world events, it is NOT a safe haven, or it doesnt react that way immediately for sure.

I think anyone with a little commonsense can see that gold is a commodity that is sensitive to excess money creation.

I guarantee no one is thinking I'm going to buy gold because I feel safer owning gold when world events are in turmoil.

I know that thought never crosses my mind when I buy gold or silver and I'm pretty sure no one else is thinking that either.

We all buy for the same reason. We expect prices to eventually go up. If the fundamentals support higher prices then eventually they will go up. And they will continue to go up until either the fundamentals change or a price level is reached where sentiment has reached a bullish extreme to such a degree that we run out of buyers.

Once that happens gold undergoes a violent regression to the mean profit taking event.

One needs to ask themselves have the events in Japan changed the fundamentals driving the gold bull? I would say if anything they have made it stronger.

Have we seen a parabolic event take gold to the kind of stretched levels where sentiment becomes extreme and it is in jeopardy of a sharp regression to the mean correction.

Nope, sentiment is dead neutral.

So I have to assume that once this passes the fundamentals will take over again and drive gold into that final C-wave top.

My understanding is that a meltdown is not as ominous as it sounds from a health risk perspective and that a meltdown does not implicitly mean that there will be an explosion. That said, if there is an ignition and expulsion of radioactive material into the atmosphere then all bets are off.

I can now comment on your lovely trip that is coming up since the market is now close. Have a great time.I have been to that part of the world a couple of times skiing. Best holiday ever. Breath taking!!

I know a lot are saying if you're not leveraged then there's no worry of a margin call. But I'm wondering if it'll be safe to hold AGQ/HZU if we continue to keep going lower. Anybody holding these concerned about decay factor?

I guess I'm somewhat confused. The dollar is at 80.69 but yet they say as the dollar rises, gold will drop by 3%. So then why is gold/silver and the dollar all dropping together now? We were to pull out at 78.82 and the low was 79.25.Has pulling the trigger changed? (I'm twitching right now in the red)

I don't think gold's intermediate cycle has topped but I'm just concerned that what's happening over in Japan has changed things up a bit (my heart goes out to everybody's family there).

I'm worried that there may be more selling pressure before we can resume the c-wave. I know another bad day and I'll be in the red. It'll be really hard for me psychologically for me since I would have gone from flying head to deep in the red. It'll definitely be hard for me to hold on or even add with the rest of my dry powder once I'm in the red. I did manage to add yesterday which turned out to be early.

Folks prepare yourselves for gold to make a lower low in the next few days. I'm not saying it will happen for sure, but it will ease the parameters for a swing and make putting in a cycle bottom easier.

If you are getting too emotional at this point then you need to either reduce position size or turn off your computer for the next week and do something else.

TZ,What you are saying is that you believe yesterday was a cycle low. If it was then yes you are right it won't get violated. I'm just not sure it was yet. I need to see something that suggests it was the low like a swing or at least some pretty strong upside action.

If the dollar cycle fails that would go a long way towards confirming golds cycle low especially if gold rallies hard.

Gold/Silver are priced in dollars, but it's still subject to demand like any other asset. Whatever gains related to the currency depreciated are obviously being more than compensated by the selling of the asset.

Of interest when I talked to my bullion broker today, he said a lot of margin calls are coming in where people have to sell their gold. He said Gold is the quickest most liquidable asset to cover the margin calls. He said you must vbe doing good if you are buying while others are selling.

Man, you guys are in an alternate universe. The dollar against a basket of currencies is down .07%. That';s why gold is not moving against it---nothing is happening! Please show me where you see the dollar "plunging" except against the yen?

Ryan,Based on the anxiety in your posts, you may be trading too large, above your emotional skill level, so to speak. That's another way of saying that you entered positions without fully understanding and accepting your risk. Been there, done that, and I guarantee you that every trader on this board has done the same thing at one time or another.The bull may bail you out on this trade, he may not. Either way, the only thing in this game you can control is your risk. If you’re not doing that you will eventually lose money. Part of managing risk is knowing how you will react to losses and sizing your positions accordingly.Gary isn’t going to control your risk – he will tell you how he controls his own risk. His stops are at the IT lows for gold. If you don’t have his entry, you may not want to rely on his risk management plan.Sorry if this is off the mark, but I went through a similar experience not long ago and I know it’s no fun. Best of luck to you.

The Day The Yen Carry Trade DiedSubmitted by Tyler Durden on 03/16/2011 17:59 -0400

While everyone is staring in disbelief at the USDJPY, the real carry action is in the high yielding-YEN pairs, i.e., the development, high growing countries. And it's a massacre: ZARJPY, NZDJPY, AUDJPY - all are plunging far more than the USD. This is nothing short of a complete carry trade unwind. The implications: the cheapest recurring source of funding for risk assets - the Yen carry trade, is over. Those who managed to sell early on are lucky. The rest will get such an onslaught of margin calls tomorrow they may need to access the discount window (if Primary Dealers and the luckier banks). Many will be forced to sell assets to satisfy collateral requirements as ongoing sales of carry pairs push the Yen ever higher, and force ever more liquidity out of the market. And if the Yen carry trade is done, the question is when will the USD, which has also been a carry currency for some time, follow suit. And, once again, the most troubling observation is that the BOJ has not intervened. Our sinking feeling is that after pumping 50 trillion or so in money markets, the petty cash may be running quite low. In any case, ES opens in 2 minutes. Grab the popcorn now.

Thanks for the replies guys. I think Josh is right, I started off small and then got greedy and kept on adding on the way up. Now the daily swings have become pretty large and I have to admit it's hard for me to control my emotions. I really don't want to drop any of my positions either since I've held on for so long already. I will try to tough it out a little longer.

Ryan, Just don't sell out of fear. Keep your head. Gold and Silver is cyclical, we are just on the downside of the cycle. It will come back up as it is in a bull market that I believe is to run another 5 years.

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